Unseen
by shadowmaster62
Summary: Annoyed enough at being dead, Naruto is forced to pay off a debt to the Shinigami. Working as the god of deaths right hand, however, does have it's perks, including messing with mortals, cool powers, and an amazing dental plan.
1. Complications

Prologue: Complications

Naruto stood in the forest, completely confused.

It might have been the fact that he could see his mangled body on the ground, or maybe the fact that the world looked slightly blurry, but it was neither of those things.

The third Hokage smiled at him, "Nice to see you again, Naruto-kun"

Naruto just gawked, his brain still not quite working properly.

Sarutobi took notice of Naruto's stunned state, "I know your confused right now, but don't worry about it, you'll understand soon enough, as soon as Jeff gets here."

Naruto shook his head, "But….I….the mission….Sasuke….you…..oh god….."

The boy suddenly got a haunted look in his eyes, "Sasuke…..he killed me, didn't he?……"

"I'm afraid so," said the third, but his tone was light, "but don't be ashamed for a moment. You fought a battle the likes of which even I have never seen, so no blame could ever be placed on you."

Naruto smiled a tiny bit, "No, I'm still to blame, but I suppose it doesn't matter anyway now."

The boy slowly walked over to his body, the outlines looking slightly blurry, but the huge hole in his chest readily visible.

"All my life spent training, and look how I ended up, forget Hokage, I wasn't even a Chuunin"

Sarutobi smiled again, "You don't need to worry, Naruto-kun, there's a reason you are still," he gestured around, "here."

Naruto looked at him oddly, "Yeah, shouldn't I be surrounded by mountains of ramen and beautiful girls? I was always told that after you died, you went to a place where are your wishes came true."

The ex-Hokage was impressed with Naruto's relatively calm state of mind, but just shrugged in response to his question. "I've never been to heaven myself, but I know some people who have, and it's great place from what I hear, but in our cases, there are…….. complications."

Naruto suddenly looked frightened, "I'm not going to turn into a vengeful ghost, am I!"

Sarutobi just laughed, "I've never heard of any of us becoming a vengeful ghost, but we do occasionally interfere with the lives of mortals"

Looking around, and seeing they were alone, Naruto raised a disbelieving eyebrow, "You said 'we', where are all the other people who've died then?"

His response was a sigh, "I told you, you'll understand when…"

The air around them started to warp and shift, and Sarutobi smiled, "ah, perfect timing."

Suddenly, a huge form materialized, and Naruto looked in horror at the monster in front of him. It was humanoid in shape, but an enormous white robe and long white hair concealed most of its body. What skin that was visible was a light purple color, contrasting against the creatures blood red horns.

It reached a clawed hand towards him and Naruto recoiled, closing his eyes. A moment later, when nothing happened, Naruto reopened them to see the things hand still held in the air, just a few feet away.

The thing gave him a fanged grin, "It's a pleasure to meet you at last, Naruto-kun. The names Jeffery, but you can call me Jeff."

Lost in a somewhat surreal state, Naruto reached out and shook the gigantic hand, "Nice to meet you to…..I guess…."

"I know your mind is probably running in circles right now, but try to stick to one question at a time," Jeff advised.

"Um…" Naruto look hesitant, "what ARE you?"

"Good question, actually. I'm a Shinigami, or rather, THE Shinigami."

"Shinigami?" Naruto asked, "as in the being who controls death?"

"Bingo!"

"So then, what exactly do you want with me?"

"I'm also the one who empowers the Shikifuujin."

Naruto looked lost, "Aaaaaannd?"

Jeff sighed, "What? Do you think I just give away my strength for free? In exchange for the power of the Shikifuujin, any soul affected by the seal belongs to me."

Naruto looked nervous again, "So just because I had the stupid fox put inside me, my soul belongs to you? And for that matter…where is the stupid fox? I don't feel his presence at all"

"Well, to answer the first question," Jeff said, "yes, your soul is mine, and as for the fox, he annoyed me, so I sent him to hell"

The boy gulped, "hell…?"

Sarutobi cut in, "Don't let Jeff scare you, He only sent Kyuubi to where the demon can make himself useful. "

Jeff nodded, "Exactly. And you, Naruto, are most useful here."

Naruto he let Jeff continue, "As the Shinigami, I am in charge of managing many things. Most souls who owe me a dept end up working at heaven's help desk or in another such menial job until I think they've earned their release."

Jeff took a breath,

"The shikifuujin, however, is so devastating, that sometimes a greater payment is required. I have personal agents, but am never allowed more than two. When a person marked by the Shikifuujin dies, I can either send them to a regular job, or replace one of my two assistants"

Understanding dawned on Naruto's face as Jeff went on, "Sarutobi here replaced the first Mizukage as my left hand when he died, and the ex-fourth Hokage held the position at my right until just 20 minutes ago, when you joined the ranks of the deceased"

Naruto sighed, "your kidding right? I die and am immediately drafted to be your minion?"

Jeff wagged his purple finger, "No, I decided you would be my right hand long ago, and besides, the fourth Hokage held the position for years, and really should have been relieved before now. I just kept him on because he had the right personality for it, as you do."

Naruto looked at Sarutobi, "You've been working for this guy?"

"Yes, indeed I have, Naruto-kun. And I suspect you may enjoy your job more than you think."

"I agree," Jeff said, "I would not have selected you if I didn't think the job suited you."

At this point, Jeffery started to preach about tasks and personality traits that worked well in them, but Naruto was distracted.

What appeared to be two disembodied arms were pulling themselves along the ground towards Sarutobi's back. They moved slowly, but persistently, and neither Jeffery nor Sarutobi seemed to notice.

When they were just a few feet behind the third, one arm picked up the other and hurled it upwards. The second arm latched onto Sarutobi's ear and the man immediately started yelling and shaking his head, trying to dislodge the appendage.

Finally, the ex-hokage just grabbed the arm, but got smacked twice while hurling it into the forest. He turned quickly, and caught sight of the second arm trying to drag itself to safety. He picked up the fleeing second arm and gave it a firm drop-kick in the opposite direction of the first.

Jeff looked slightly affronted at the interruption, but Naruto just blinked, "What were those?"

Sarutobi sighed and rubbed his cheek, "Orochimaru's arms. Since the rest of him is still alive, his arms just sit here in limbo waiting for the rest of the body to die. They have somehow managed to gain some form of intelligence and attack me once every couple days."

"Ahem," Jeff said, "as I was saying, I think it should now be obvious why I picked you for this position, wouldn't you agree, Naruto?"

Having missed Jeff's entire speech, Naruto just nodded.

"Good," the Shinigami said with satisfaction, "then you'll have no objections if we start your first lesson now. I think a demonstration is in order."

Jeff turned to Sarutobi, "If you would do the honors…"

The aforementioned man grabbed what looked like a long beaded necklace off his waist and threw it into the air, **_"Hyuuga Hizashi! The left hand of death summons you from the _****_darkness!"_**

The beads snapped into a perfect circle with a diameter of about 6 feet and started to spin in the air. A moment later, a blue flame appeared in the middle of the circle and started to grow. In only a few seconds, it grew to a significant size and took on a human shape. The beads started to whorl and wrap around the human shaped flame until all of its appendages were entwined, the arms, legs torso and head all were wrapped.

Sarutobi clapped his hands together into a seal Naruto was unfamiliar with, **_"ANIMO MANES!"_**

The beads sunk into the flaming form, and in a flash of light, where before there had been blue flames, there was skin, and where there had been only a vague human shape, there was a distinctly outlined body. One that just happened to look exactly like an older form of Neji.

Hizashi blinked at his surroundings, "Dammit, Jeff! Why do you always use me for your demonstrations!"

Naruto was looking on in awe, "I've gotta learn that…."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Meanwhile, in Hell

"Welcome, lost souls!" Kyuubi delightedly bellowed to his crowd, "Now, I've been put in charge of you folks, since all of your sentences end at about the same time. Most of you will get out of hell in about 167 years, and it's my job to make sure that by then, your rehabilitated"

The demon stood in front of a huge stereo and dexterously grabbed a CD from behind it with his tail and slid it into the tray. The demon grinned happily.

"Since the method of torture is up to me, I've decided to be creative. I hope you all like to mmm bop, because as of right now, our Hanson marathon begins!"

A few pitiful moans came from the crowed, and one man cheered.

Kyuubi glared, "Whoever that was, you're now transferred to rehabilitation room 13c, the rest of you, get ready for 167 years of all Hanson, all the time!"

As the music started, the demon started to bob his head to the beat. Now, if only he could get that cute succubus to dance with him…

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Authors Notes: Expect updates on this story about once a week or so, depending on the reactions I get.

Apologies to Hanson fans (If there actually are any)

Hit the review button! You know you want to…

Translation

Animo Manes (Latin) - Give life to the shades(souls) of the departed

It's pronounced a-nee-mo man-ez, with a soft E in Manes


	2. Anachronisms, anyone?

Sarutobi dismissed the somewhat annoyed Hizashi and picked up his beads as they fell from the vanishing form of the Hyuuga, "Don't get to exited, Naruto-kun, it will a while before your allowed to call spirits. As much as you may dislike it, lesson one is learning the rules."

Naruto's face fell, "rules?"

Jeff raised a purple eyebrow at him, "What? Do you think we should just teach you reality altering skills without restricting your use of them?"

The boy saw the wisdom there, and grinned again, "Ok then, since you're the boss, but lets get this over with."

Jeffery sat down cross-legged, spreading his huge robe out around him, "Ok, the most important rule goes first. We allow some personal discretion in the use of your powers, but when you've been given a mission, it ALWAYS comes first. Do you understand?"

Naruto shrugged, "Yeah, sounds fair."

Jeff's black eyes seemed to darken even more, "You need to accept this, because I have to know that even if everyone you loved in life was about to be killed, you would not abandon your mission, no matter how trivial it seems to you. We are the governors of time and space, so mistakes can mean the ruin of civilizations."

Suddenly struck with the weight of responsibility, Naruto felt very small as he nodded.

"Excellent," Jeff said, "The rest of the rules are simple. No direct contact with the physical realm, No altering the same persons fate stream twice in one day, and No taking orders from anyone but me"

Naruto crossed his arms, "What if an angel came down with special instructions?"

"Then, you would tell the angel to clear the orders with me. And don't kid yourself, an angel might just be sneaky enough to try and pull something like that, and you'd be the one to take the heat if something went wrong. Play it safe, if your not sure about an order, wait to talk to me about it."

The boy was nodding again, so Jeff addressed the third, "Sarutobi, I need to get back to work, so get this kid up to speed as fast as possible. Starting with the basic fate controls, I want no less than 4 hours of practice a day."

The shinigami poofed out of existence, and Naruto jumped, "Ne, ne, why is he leaving so soon? He didn't spend much time here at all!"

Sandaime finished looping his beads and replaced them on his belt, "Since I have to take time training you, Jeffery has to do even more work than usual, so you won't see him much at first. Your training will be with me and anyone I see fit to call"

Naruto grinned brightly, "When do we start?"

"We'll start right now, unless you have something better to do?…"

The boy stared blankly at him.

"I didn't think so. Our first actual lesson will be the most basic of fate controls. It helps if the subject is someone your familiar with, so who do you think needs a little fate altering?"

For Naruto, that was easy, "Sasuke"

"I had a feeling you might say that, but there shouldn't be a problem. I'll do it first, and you can watch."

"But don't we need someone's permission? Who do we ask about altering someone's fate?"

Sarutobi laughed, "Naruto, unless we're given specific instructions by Jeff, it's up to our discretion. We are the ones who give the permission to alter destiny."

Naruto's mouth formed an 'O', "Never mind then, on to the fate messing"

"Not so fast, Naruto-kun, as I said, we're doing the most basic of fate controls, the Fatum Adnexus, or fate bind. It requires two people, whose destinies will be tied together. There is, however, a small annoyance that comes with this technique, we don't know HOW their destinies will be tied together."

The boy tilted his head, "explain"

"say, for example," Sarutobi said, "that we bound Uchiha Sasuke and Haruno Sakura. In 3 years, they might meet again, she convinces him to return home, he takes his punishment and the two of them fall in love and have 9 kids."

Naruto was surprised by how little this line of thought bothered him, being dead made a lot of things clearer.

Sarutobi shocked him back from his ponderings by pointing his finger right between Naruto's eyes, "BUT, it isn't that simple. Because that scenario was only one possibility, another possibility would be that Sasuke decides that, in order to escape his past, he has to hunt down and kill Sakura. The two of them are still bound by fate, just in a different way, and it is impossible for us to predict the future, so we would have no idea which of those two scenarios would play out, or whether Sasuke and Sakura would be bound by fate in any one of another million ways."

Naruto let himself fall backwards and sat on the ground, "But then, how could I ever risk using that!"

Sandaime laughed, "I have to make it clear how dangerous some of these abilities are, but remember that we can re-alter fate later if we need to, so we'll get involved if something really bad happens. But I digress, you need to pick someone to bind Sasuke to."

Naruto thought, and thought and thought, and pondered, and thought.

"Tsunade," he said finally

Sarutobi nodded and stroked his beard in that way that only old wise men can while he considered Naruto's decision, "Good choice, this should work well. I'm going to do an example from my assignment list, then you can try Sasuke and Tsunade." The old man whipped out what looked to be an odd scroll and ran his finger over the lists of names.

He suddenly stopped and nodded to himself, then rolled the scroll back up and placed it back in the depths of his robes. At that moment, Naruto suddenly realized something; Sandaime was wearing white robes, much as he had when he was Hokage. The only thing missing was the hat.

Naruto made a note to inquire about how to get a change of cloths while dead, but Sarutobi was already starting his technique, and Naruto watched closely

The old man held his arms straight out to the sides, and formed two different seals, one per hand. His face scrunched with concentration and Naruto felt _something_ gathering around Sarutobi's hands.

He suddenly brought his hands together, the two seals he was making connecting perfectly to form another more conventional, but still new, hand seal.

"**_FATUM ADNEXUS_**"

There was again the flash of light, and Naruto suddenly felt slightly nauseous, as if the world were spinning, but the feeling was gone a moment later.

"Whoa…" the boy shook his head, "what WAS that?"

"Nothing much, just the universe re-aligning itself. It happens after every fate shift, the larger the change, the more vicious the nausea, but you get used to it."

"Ok, I saw, or rather felt, what you were doing, but how did you specify the two people to be bound?"

"That" Sandaime said, "is the easiest of all. You just need to know who they are in your mind. It doesn't even matter if you know their names, you could just think 'The Kazekage' or 'the Doughnut Shop Man who gave me extra sprinkles that one time', as long as you know enough about them to distinguish them from anyone else, you just think of those defining characteristics and your power does the rest"

Naruto absorbed this, then closed his eyes, held out his arms as he had seen his teacher do, forming the two one-handed seals, and thought about Sasuke. He thought of everything that defined Sasuke as a person, and quickly felt a strange feeling in his left hand.

Somehow knowing the first half was done, he switched his thoughts to Tsunade. This one came faster, as he just imagined her as 'Godaime Hokage', a position no one else in the world could claim, and again felt the feeling, this time in his right hand.

A shiver of anticipation went through him, and he brought his hands together slowly, making sure the two seals linked up like they were supposed to.

"FATUM ADNEXUS!"

Naruto felt a shudder run through his body and knew the nausea was coming again. A moment later it hit him, and he keeled over onto one knee, breathing deeply. It immediately occurred to him that this was ridiculous, since he was dead and therefore did not need oxygen, but his lungs were pumping all the same.

Sarutobi was clapping enthusiastically, "Very good, Naruto-kun. I have to say I'm impressed. It took me three tries to get that skill down."

"So what happens now?" Naruto inquired, "How will I know if it worked?"

"It worked, our powers can't fail as long as the ritual is done properly, but we might not see the results for a few days, or even weeks."

The boy looked exhilarated, "Okay, so what's next?"

"You," Sandaime said, "just made your first enemy in the afterlife."

Naruto was taken aback, "Huh?"

"Not literally, Naruto-kun, but figuratively. Our work is such that Ghosts, Angels, Demons, and everything in between get annoyed with us. The occasional one gets pissed enough to attack us head on."

Sarutobi took a moment to collect his thoughts, "Angels use flaming swords, Demons use pitchforks, and there was once a time when we used large scythes. This was long before I was around, but back then Jeff had to personally intervene in most every conflict because of the rule of two. Jeff can never have more than two assistants, and two sub-Shinigami with scythes are no match for 30 Angels with their flaming swords. About 120 years ago, Jeff had a little talk with Chronos, the overlord of time, hoping to get us some better equipment to even the odds."

The old man snapped his fingers and a box appeared out of thin air, shimmering into existence. "He came back with two of these"

Sarutobi reached into the box and came out with the most bizarre looking thing Naruto had ever seen. It looked to be made out of metal, but it wasn't any weapon he knew of.

"What exactly," Naruto asked, "is that?"

"This," Sarutobi said proudly, "is a fully automatic Intratec DC-9. Features a blowback design, fires from the open bolt, and has a threaded barrel. Uses 50 round magazines, filled with our special ammunition manufactured by Chronos himself."

Naruto blinked, "Yes…..but what IS it?"

Sarutobi sighed and pointed the device into the forest. All Naruto saw was the old man tensing his hand, and a stream of objects moving at insane speeds blasted from the thing and tore into the trees.

After a few seconds of destruction, he stopped the spray of mayhem and lowered the weapon, "Do you get it now?"

Naruto shook his head

The old man fought off impatience; it was easy to forget that mortals and the recently dead had such limited knowledge of technology. He gestured for Naruto to sit down and started to explain the basics of operating and servicing a Tec-9.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Sasuke ran through the forest, relishing his recent victory. He had beaten Naruto!

Somewhere deep in the Uchiha's mind there was a small voice speaking out in concern for the fox boy. A small voice that sounded suspiciously like Kakashi.

_What if he actually died from his injuries?_ The little voice said, _if that happened, how could you ever forgive yourself?_

Sasuke stopped and a tree branch and glared of into empty space, "Naruto wouldn't die from little injuries like those"

_How do you know? _Asked the little voice, _did you examine his injuries?_

"Well……no" Sasuke admitted, "But…"

_Exactly. _The little Kakashi voice said with authority, _you didn't._

Sasuke crossed his arms, "Hey! I don't have to take this from you! You don't even exist, you're just a voice in my head!"

_But you can't deny I'm right!_

"La La La…I can't hear you"

_Stop being so immature!_

"Or what? What is the scary voice going to do to me?"

_Arrrg! I'm going to talk to you later, when you're not acting like you're three!_

Sasuke started off, again feeling proud of himself, he had shown that little imaginary voice who was boss!

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Exactly 74 minutes after the start of Sarutobi's explanation, Naruto knew he would never again be complete without his Tec-9.

The fact that so much ass kicking could be contained in so small a device mystified him at first, but Sarutobi carefully explained the mechanics of it, and at this moment, the old man was quizzing him on some of the things they had gone over.

"Where do you never point it?"

Naruto knew that one, "At myself"

"How many magazines do you carry at once?"

"Tw…" Naruto caught himself, "Three, one in the 'gun,' and two others"

The word 'gun' rolled unfamiliarly off Naruto's tongue as if it had an odd taste to it.

Sarutobi pondered his next question, "When do you get more ammunition?"

"Whenever any of my magazines are less than completely full"

The old man nodded, Naruto knew enough to at least protect himself. "Okay, Naruto-kun, then next thing I need to do is introduce you to Chronos, since we need to pick up two spare magazines for you and a few hundred astral bullets, but there's a minor issue we have to deal with first"

Naruto looked hopeful, "Do I get some of those beads you have?"

"Not yet, that requires more study on your part, but I do have something for you."

Sarutobi reached into the box from which he had taken the Tec-9 and withdrew what looked like a black robe.

Naruto examined it curiously, "And what is this?"

Sarutobi looked at him blankly, "It's a black robe…"

"What do I do with it?"

"You wear it"

"But what else does it do? What powers does it have?"

"None. It's just a black robe"

The boy was about to say something, but he was cut short, "yes, you have to wear it"

Naruto grumbled and grabbed the piece of clothing, and not caring about privacy, quickly changed into it right there in the forest. It looked like the garment would be far to large for his small body, but as he put it on, it adjusted itself so that when he finally stuck his head out the top, it fit like it had been tailored for him.

Sandaime looked at the boy thoughtfully, he didn't look half bad.

Naruto continued to grumble, "Why do I have a black robe when you and Jeff get white ones?"

Sarutobi shrugged, "That's just the way it's always been, the right hand of death has a black robe, and the left hand has a white robe. Jeff could wear Hawaiian shirts if he wanted to, but he likes the color white. Walk with me."

The old man snapped his fingers again, the box vanished, and he started to walk through the woods. Naruto ran to catch up while simultaneously trying not to trip over his robe.

As the two of them walked, Naruto carefully removed the magazine from his machine pistol and placed the two items into two separate pockets in his new clothing, while Sarutobi nodded approvingly.

"Now, before we arrive, there are some things you need to know about Chronos, Naruto-kun"

"Like what?"

"You need to make a good first impression. Chronos and Jeff are the two neutral overlords, Jeff controlling destiny, and Chronos, time. Obviously, their jobs overlap, so we work with Chronos on regular occasions. He can be a bit…odd…but you mustn't be rude"

Naruto grinned, "No problem, stop worrying, old man"

Sarutobi gave a long-suffering sigh, "You've never met Chronos"

The two continued to chat as they walked, but Sarutobi suddenly stopped and grabbed Naruto's wrist. The boy was overcome by a sense of vertigo for a few seconds, and when the feeling left, black rocks instead of trees surrounded them, and the dirt was bare, with no sign of plant life anywhere.

Naruto shook his head to clear the disorientation, "How did that happen?"

"Another trick you'll soon learn. For us, teleportation is another automatic thing. Know where you want to go, and you're power will do the rest."

"And where then, exactly" Naruto asked, "are we?"

"This is limbo, a part of the astral plane filled with absolutely nothing. Excellent place for those who want to be left alone" Sarutobi walked up to one of the larger rocks and tapped it twice in a specific spot.

The ground shook, and Naruto watched as the rock split in half, revealing a staircase downward.

(Meanwhile, in Hell)

Kyuubi was confident.

The object of his desire leaned against the wall casually. She was almost as large as the demon himself, but her gargantuan form was no less magnificent due to its enormous size.

She was a Succubus, and he was making his move.

He stood up on his hind legs, using his power to alter his body slightly, allowing him to stand upright and making him look rather like a huge orange werewolf. He advanced slowly towards his target, each of his steps sending tortured souls flying in all directions.

Kyuubi leaned up against the wall next to her, "I think you're in the wrong place, baby, cause you look heavenly to me"

She looked at him coolly, but the fox demon was undaunted, "Seeing as how we'll be stuck here together for the next little while, I was wondering if I might not get the chance to know you a bit better."

She raised a perfectly formed eyebrow, "Really? What could I possibly want to know about YOU?"

Kyuubi almost flinched at that one, but forced himself not to give up, trying another more direct method of attack. "Well, there's nothing but music here, and I'm not that good at passing time, but I can dance a mean Foxtrot."

The succubus smiled in the smallest possible way, "Is that so?"

(Back on the Astral Plane)

Naruto descended down the staircase, and the deeper he went; the more he noticed an odd smell in the air. It was a smell he was trained to know, but he couldn't believe there'd be any of THAT here.

Sarutobi wrinkled his nose, he had been hoping Chronos wouldn't be indulging in his habit today.

The stairway ended abruptly, and opened into a large room Naruto found indescribable. There were color's everywhere, but it was impossible to discern exactly where they came from. The smell hung in the smoky air, and Naruto started to make his way into the room, looking left and right at the many odd and peculiar objects that filled it, none of which he could put a name to.

At the other end of the room was a doorway, from which a person suddenly emerged.

He was about a foot taller than Naruto himself was, wore long flowing purple robes, and managed to look as inappropriate in said robes as Naruto imagined was possible. His hair was long, hanging messily down passed his shoulders, his face was unshaven, his eyes slightly bloodshot, and he held a pipe in his left hand.

He grinned when he saw the two of them, "Yo, dudes! This the new kid, Sarutobi?"

Sarutobi nodded with a sigh, and the figure grinned even wider, striding forward to grab Naruto's hand, "Hey man, I'm Chronos, Overlord of time," He winked at Naruto, "and seller of the best weed anywhere this side of heaven"

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Author's Notes:

The death god with sword thing is overdone, as is the scythe, so I figured I'd equip my supernatural beings with automatic weapons. It's more entertaining that way.

I'm going to continue on with the Kyuubi's adventures in hell, just because of the sheer fun potential.

For those who don't know what a Tec-9 machine pistol looks like, type it into a google image search, you'll get hundreds of results.

I think that's it for my random thoughts, don't forget to review...

Tune in next chapter as Naruto talks with the drugged up overlord of time and Sasuke has odd dreams


	3. That's Not Logical, Captain

"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing."

"But," say Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, so therefore, you don't."

"Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that" and he promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

--Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Naruto stood frozen for a moment as Chronos shook his hand enthusiastically; his brain was having trouble processing what he had just heard.

"You sell weed?"

Chronos grinned wider, "I can proudly claim that I sell any and every variety that ever has been or ever will be smoked. One of the bonuses of controlling time, my little amigo, is that I travel to any time I want. I got shit here that won't be invented for hundreds of years"

"So then," Naruto asked, intrigued, "who do you sell it to?"

"Oh, I have a few stores in the physical realm that I let handle the actual selling. I just provide the goods."

Sarutobi was about to try getting the conversation back on track, but Naruto's curiosity had been piqued.

"But you don't need money, so why run businesses?"

Chronos threw his arm over Naruto's shoulder and held up his pipe, "It's not about money, my pint sized friend, but about spreading the joy of cannabis to the world! It's about teaching people love and peace, all through the power of weed!"

Naruto rubbed his head sheepishly, "Honestly, now I feel left out having never tried it…"

Chronos looked horrified, "WHAT! To hear such a thing tears at me like…something sharp…that tears…"

Realizing that he was maybe not the best at making up similes, Chronos tried a more direct approach, "We must solve this problem of weed deprivation immediately, and for the right hand of death, I do believe I could give just a small free samp…"

"There shall be," Sarutobi said firmly as he grabbed Chronos' pipe, "absolutely NO more weed smoked by anyone today."

Chronos looked slightly put off, but was used to what he called Sarutobi's 'intolerant ways'.

"I suppose then that you'll be wanting some of my extra special double whammy astral bullets?"

Sarutobi nodded, "Unless you have the extra special triple whammys done…?"

"Sadly, no, they're taking me a bit longer than expected to develop. The more I work on these, the more I realize how much of a pain it is to actually have to design something from scratch instead of just stealing it from the future."

Naruto blinked, "Extra special double whammy?"

Chronos snatched back his pipe from Sarutobi and went over to one of his shelves, "Hey, I create them, so I get to name them however I want. If you want to complain, make your ammo yourself, it's not like I get paid to do it."

He rifled through piles of what, to Naruto, were indescribable objects, finally pulling out of the mess a small cardboard box. Chronos casually tossed the box over his shoulder and Sarutobi dove for it, managing to catch it inches above the ground.

"Are you out of your MIND?"

"Probably," Chronos said amiably.

Naruto crossed his arms and tried to think, "What's so special about that little box?"

"This box contains astral bullets," Sarutobi said humorlessly, "which are extremely dangerous if not handled carefully!"

Chronos sighed theatrically, "Do you see, Naruto, what I have to deal with? No one ever thanks me for my work, they always just criticize me."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Sasuke drifted through sleep contentedly, wandering through a great empty dreamscape.

He walked slowly forward, feeling an inexplicable apprehension. Then he saw her.

Her body was partially obscured by that mysterious force that obscures things in dreams, but he felt himself sure that she was beautiful beyond compare. For the first time in his life, he was in love.

He wanted to run forward and embrace her, but he was suddenly struck by how sad she looked. It was a mystery how he knew she looked sad when he couldn't see her face, but he was way past logic at this point, wanting nothing more than to make her happy again.

He ran towards her, but never seemed to get any closer, even as she spoke.

"Why, Sasuke... Why did you leave?"

"I didn't mean to, I swear!"

"Don't lie to me Sasuke... You left because you wanted Orochimaru's power, there's no use denying it now."

The Uchiha tried fruitlessly to think of something to say, but the woman started to slowly dissolve.

"Wait! Don't go."

The mystery woman laughed bitterly, "That's one hell of a thing for you to say, Uchiha Sasuke. If you want to see me so badly, come back to Konoha and seek me out."

Then, she was gone.

His dream started to blur, and when Sasuke next opened his eyes he was fully awake. He pushed himself into a sitting position and pondered his dream, finally looking up at the sky, "If that's what it takes to find you, then return I will!"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Far away within the walls of the Hidden Leaf, Tsunade lay in bed. It had been a strange dream to be sure, but she had an unsettling feeling that it had been something more than a dream.

Invisible to her human eye, a purple robed figure wearing dark sunglasses stood hovering a few feet above her bed.

"Fucknuts... Jeff is going to want to hear about this."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

"I still don't quite get it" Naruto said slowly, "why do astral bullets only work on Devils and Angels?"

The three supernaturals were sitting around a small table in one of Chronos' seemingly innumerable rooms, and Naruto was being given a crash course in astral weaponry.

Sarutobi sighed,"Ok, I'll explain it a different way this time. Only the most powerful of beings can actually move their bodies between the planes, and everyone else must always be connected to their home dimension. Souls cannot be truly destroyed, and any damage they sustain will eventually heal, but it takes a great deal of focus to manifest in an alien dimension; so if a demon or angel takes enough damage, it gets sucked back to hell or heaven. Since the astral plane _is _our home, we could shoot each other forever and it wouldn't have any permanent effect."

"Though," Chronos interrupted, "I highly recommend you don't do that, since being hit with an astral bullet _really_ hurts."

"Yeah, I already got the 'shooting myself is bad' lecture from the old man earlier."

Chronos calmly picked up one of the weapons on the table and fired a short burst into Naruto's foot.

He thrashed, yelled, cursed, and generally made a fuss for a few seconds, then his leg reformed and he grudgingly got up and sat in his chair again, "Point made."

Sarutobi glared, "That was maybe a little excessive Chro..."

There was a shift in the dimensional fabric and a bald black man shimmered into existence wearing purple robes identical to those of Chronos and landed on the table.

"THE ALMIGHTY MORPHEUS HAS ARRIVED!"

Chronos jumped up, "Duuuuuuuude!"

Sarutobi's head hit the table, "Oh bloody hell."

The newcomer, however, ignored them both and went straight for Naruto, "I know your probably confused right now, young man, but you only have two options."

"Does either of them involve you getting out of my personal space?"

The man seemed to have not heard him and shoved his hands forward towards Naruto's face, "Take the red pill and you'll wake up tomorrow with a headache on a beach laying next to a strangely effeminate man. Take the blue pill and you'll receive a visit from a hallucinogenic bunny who will tell you to kill yourself by slitting your wrist with a baseball bat. So... which is it going to be?"

Sarutobi whispered a couple words under his breath and Morpheus made an 'urk' sound as he was suddenly unable to move. Predicting what was about to happen, Naruto pushed his chair away from the table as the large man fell flat on his face.

Chronos rushed to help his like-robed companion up and glared at the ex-hokage, "That was cold, man."

"I've said it before and I'll continue to say it until it sinks into your thick skulls: Giving people with power over fate mind altering drugs is not only exceedingly stupid, it's also against Jeff's rules."

"You need to chill out a bit, what Jeff doesn't know can't hurt him, or more importantly, me."

Sarutobi mumbled something and Morpheus regained the use of his limbs, "As much fun as it is to see you, if you could get straight to the point we'd all appreciate it."

"There's a small problem involving the Hokage. I've already run it by Jeff, and he told me to come here."

Morpheus now had everyone's full attention, "I was sifting through Godaime's dreams earlier, and if I'm not mistaken, and I very rarely am when it comes to these things, her fate has been seriously fucked up."

Chronos pondered for a moment, "How sure are you?"

"Is it normal for her to be sharing dreams of romantic longing with a one Uchiha Sasuke?"

Naruto and Sandaime's eyes were wide as saucers, and they shook their heads in unison.

"Then I'm pretty sure."

"Wow..." Naruto said slowly, "this is disturbing on so many levels."

Sarutobi grabbed his Tec-9 and their new supply of astral bullets, then shoved them into his robes, "Sorry to go so soon, but we really need to deal with this."

Chronos gave a little salute, "No problem-o, dudes. Have fun."

"Since we always enjoy dealing with fatalistic train wrecks."

Naruto got kind of pulled along by Sarutobi's sudden energy and made sure to pick up his own weapon and follow lest he be left behind. The two bounded up the stairs and back out the door.

"Do we really have to do this now?"

"Yes. If the Fatum Adnexus set up Sasuke and Tsunade to be... romantically interested in each other, it will manifest first in the weaker willed of the two, and he will start heading back towards Konoha immediately, if he hasn't already."

"Didn't you say this kind of thing is easy to fix?"

"It varies, because we can't modify the same person's stream twice in one day. This one is going to be tricky since the longer we leave it the more complex it's going to get."

"So then why are we standing here, not moving?"

"Because we're waiting for..."

There was a now familiar ripple, and Jeff appeared next to them, "A tangle on your first fate shift, Naruto-kun? This must be a record of some sort."

"I didn't mean to, I swear."

"These aren't the kinds of things we can control, so let's try and sort this out. Any ideas, Sarutobi?"

"Tsunade won't start to feel the effects for at least another twenty four hours, and so if we can correct this before then she'll just brush her dream off as a random occurrence. Sasuke is another matter entirely, and how we deal with him will depend on whether the two of them recognized each other in the dream. Do we have info on that?"

Morpheus' head popped out of Chronos' door for a second, "By the way, they didn't recognize each other in the dream."

The door slammed as he withdrew and Naruto looked around strangely, "What was that?"

"Since we essentially do the legwork for the powers that be, they help us out by giving us an innate luck. You'll get used to things like that."

Jeff tapped his chin, "So this might yet be resolved without the immense pain in the ass of getting any memory alterations done. Can you two handle it?"

Sarutobi nodded, "Yes sir."

"Good, because I have to oversee some peace negotiations in Hidden Cloud, and nowhere will you find a group of angrier people than in Hidden Cloud. It's seriously ridiculous, they're not even angry about anything, just in general."

Jeff vanished again, and Naruto suddenly felt the world spin as Sandaime took hold of his wrist and they teleported.

They landed in a somewhat forested area, and Naruto shook off his recurring nausea, "Am I the only one who finds it strange that we're trying to stop Sasuke from falling madly in love with Tsunade because of a jutsu _I _did?"

"This kind of thing is usual fare for us. You'd be surprised how much work it is just to keep the physical world in working order."

"So then, where are we?"

"We're directly between Sasuke and Konoha, so he should be passing by here in just a couple of minutes."

"Ok, then I have a question. What was with that weird Morpheus guy?"

"I don't know him very well myself, but he's the lord of dreams, which is a far more powerful position than one might think, and he works for Chronos."

"I meant the thing with the multi-colored pills."

"I don't know myself, but it's something he always does, and he never tells anyone what he actually puts into them."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Sasuke ran through the forest excitedly, "Wait for me, my unknown goddess of desire!"

It was at this point that the little voice in his head, which _still _sounded like Kakashi, decided to make its presence known.

"_This really isn't very smart, you know."_

"You stay out of this. No little imaginary voice in my head could ever understand the love we share."

"**Indeed."**Said a second voice,** "****I cannot understand your actions, captain. As I find them to be highly illogical."**

"Who the hell are you?"

"**I am your sense of logic, and I must object to our current path, as I find there to be no valid reason for your sudden change of course." **

"Love doesn't need a reason!"

"_But seriously", Kakashi-voice interjected, "Spock has a valid point. You don't even know who you're running towards. What if she's like seventy?"_

"I will love her anyway, so both of you shut up!"

Sasuke suddenly had the distinct impression that the second voice was arching a pointed eyebrow, **"I believe it possible that you are in denial about the irrationality of your actions, and are thus making a futile attempt to justify them."**

_"That's right! I completely agree with whatever it was that he just said."_

"You laugh now, but just wait! The love I share with... whatever her name turns out to be... will be unstoppable!"

Sasuke unknowingly ran right past Sarutobi and Naruto, both of whom watched his passing with concern.

"You know," Naruto said, "I used to look up to that guy."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Zabuza was really sick of white.

Really REALLY sick of white.

It was like they had taken a normal city, and then gone crazy with a few million gallons of white paint. He supposed heaven was supposed to be a pure and stuff, but they could have at least picked a more interesting color.

He considered (and not for the first time) whether he might not have been better off going to hell, but he had heard from one of his angelic superiors that his crimes would have warranted a couple hundred years being tortured by cackling devils, and figured that even a glaringly white city filled with do-gooders would be better than that.

Zabuza was currently standing just outside his house, and he suddenly saw the angel he had been waiting for.

Samiel was well known as one of the greatest angels of all time, and trying to build on this success, his parents had named their second son Samiam. Unfortunately, Samiam turned out to be a pretty crappy fighter, and so had been designated as a courier.

Every week, said courier was sent out with all the assignments for the various angelic warriors, and every week Zabuza waited with rapt anticipation for one of the few breaches in the contiguous stream of boredom.

"Please tell me there's something in need of smiting this week."

"Got _lot's_ for you. Tyriel was very impressed with your recent work record, and particularly your self-motivation."

Samiam passed over a stack of papers and Zabuza started to leaf through them, "What can I say; I just love to smite the evil-doers."

"Ahem...yes, well, you're certainly good at it."

"Oh, I have a problem with one of these assignments."

"What?"

"See, it involves working in a house, and with a mouse, and as you know..."

Knowing full well what was coming, Samiam just glared.

"I would not, could not, in a house. I would not, could not, with a mouse."

"I'm leaving now."

"I would not eat them here or there, I would not eat them anywhere."

"Go to hell."

Zabuza yelled the last words as the other angel flew off, "I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam-I-am."

Content that he had pissed off at least one quite literally holier than thou asshole that day, the now rather inappropriately named devil of the hidden mist made his way back inside.

"Were you being rude to Samiam again, Zabuza-sama?"

"Rude? Really, Haku, what kind of angel do you take me for?"

"The kind who takes great pleasure from mocking his fellow warriors of light."

Ignoring Haku, he continued to sift through his list of tasks, he found one that would demand his immediate attention, "Sorry Haku, gotta run. There's one here that demands my immediate attention."

"Don't worry about me, I'm going down to see the new angels today and help them adapt."

"You really are ridiculously benevolent."

Haku smiled brightly, "Of course."

"Ok, stop that. The purity you're emanating is getting on my nerves."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

He flew easily through the sky, his wings of light carrying him high above the city of angels as he made his way to gate 37E. There were many gates into heaven, and one of

his assignments this morning had been about a small dispute going on at the 37th gate on the east wall of the city.

Spotting it, Zabuza went into a nose dive, dropping in altitude at a truly astounding rate and landing solidly with both feet. One of the border angels was apparently being yelled at by a group of six people, all of whom were ignoring Zabuza's arrival.

Not the kind of angel to waste time, he raised his sword into the air and hit a small button on the hilt, causing flames to flare up and surround the blade with a rather spectacular show of pyrotechnic force.

"Alright, what's going on here?"

The border guard sighed in relief, "There seems to be some confusion as to whether these people get let in."

Zabuza released the button and the flames vanished, "You have their files?"

"Yes sir."

"Well, let's see them."

Snatching the files from the quaking hand of the smaller angel, Zabuza flipped open the first one, "Kimimaro?"

"Here."

Most people would have found the white haired man a bit girly, he supposed, but Zabuza was somewhat desensitized to girly men. He started to skim through the file, and quickly noticed that something was not quite right.

"So let me get this straight, you had a horrible childhood, suffered your entire life from a crippling disease, devoted yourself entirely to the service of another person, and finally died from said crippling disease while trying with all your heart to protect the dream of the person you had devoted your life to?"

"Yes sir."

"Alright, you're in. Next one: Tayuya?"

A red haired girl stepped forward, but appeared to be refusing to speak.

"Ooh, you're pretty close, this could go either way."

Zabuza flipped the page and snickered slightly, causing Tayuya to glare at him, "What's so funny, bastard?"

"You were killed by a tree."

"It was a bunch of trees."

"It says here that the cause of death was 'Tree'."

The four armed one elbowed his way forward, "What do you mean, tree? How was she killed by a tree?"

Zabuza raised a non-existent eyebrow, "I would imagine it fell on her, as trees are large and heavy things."

"Don't get smart with me, bastard!" One of his four arms grabbed Zabuza's shirt, "I'll kill you!"

Zabuza grinned a slow and decidedly evil grin, then snapped his fingers.

With ironically little fanfare, a hole opened up in the ground and a few fiery tendrils shot out, wrapped around Kidoumaru, and sucked him down into the earth.

Almost immediately the white haired twins charged him, and with another snap of the fingers, they too disappeared into the ground. Zabuza was just starting to have fun when he suddenly went flying as Jiroubou applied his large and meaty fist to the side of his head.

Unfortunately for the fat orange haired man, his victory would be short lived. White tendrils of energy twisted through the air as Zabuza re-formed his wings and steadied himself. He drew his blade, hit 'the button' and sent a wave of flame tearing across the landscape.

Tayuya and Kimimaro looked at the pile of ash that had just been Jiroubou, then at the ground where the others had been sucked down, and tactically decided to be cooperative.

The border guard angel was looking at him with awe, "Amazing..."

"It's just a matter of liking what I do. Be sure to send that fat guy down to hell with his buddies when he gets himself back together, ok?"

"Yes, sir!"

"Good, now you two," he looked at the remaining two of the sound five (or six, depending on your count), "come with me. I have to get you people to the orientation building, and I have a lot more work to do today."

/-/-/-/-/Meanwhile, In Hell/-/-/-/-/

Ukon, Sakon, and Kidoumaru fell through the air and hit the ground in a heap. Slowly picking themselves up, they realized that they were surrounded by people who appeared to be... dancing?

_Mmmbop, ba duba dop ba do bop,  
Ba duba dop ba do bop,  
Ba duba dop ba do. Oh yeah, _

The three sound nins looked around in horror, all wondering what fiend could have come up with such a horrid place.

A few hundred feet away, the Kyuubi sat sulking next to his boom box. Things had gone well with the Succubus at first, but then he had found himself unable to resist temptation and one of his tails had brushed over her posterior. Needless to say, things had gone downhill from there.

He spared a moment during his moping to glance over at his dancing minions, and suddenly felt a lot better.

"**Uh oh... Do I see some people not dancing?"**

It took exactly 1.6 seconds for everyone in the massive cavern to focus their gazes on the three sound nin, who were looking quite confused.

"**It looks like I was right, we have some non-dancers... and you all know what that means, don't you?"**

A moan of anguish rose from the crowd, **"That's right! We're starting the playlist over from the beginning!"**

Sakon stared up at the beast, "I don't believe it... we're in hell."

Ukon looked over at his brother, "Literally or figuratively?"

"Both, I think."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Author's Notes: Just as an experiment, I downloaded "Mmm Bop" and set it to constant repeat on my computer while I went about writting, net surfing, and doing homework. I lasted just over three hours, though I think have could longer except that I was working on an essay and killed the song because it was bothering me when I was having problems with a thesis statement.

It's been porevn taht polepe can eislay raed wdros wtih teh mdilde ltertes mxeid up as lnog as the fsirt and lsat lretets are the smae, but it tnurs out taht the smae is not ture of wtirnig. In fcat,wtirnig tihs way is a mjaor pian teh ass. So I'm going to stop now.

Moving on, I really like chicken fried rice. I could seriously eat it three meals a day and never get tired of it.

In fact, I think I'm going to go eat some right now.


	4. The Theraputic Effects of Profanity

Deep in an unknown and un-cared about corner of hell, there was a teen-age figure rocking back and forth.

"They spend all day torturing mortal souls and having fun... Well, I can have fun too, and I don't need them!"

He picked up a rock and threw it into the air, then caught it. He looked down at the rock, then tossed it into the air again.

"See, this is fun. I'm having lots of fun with my rock."

This piteous scene continued for a few minutes, until he missed a catch and the rock hit the ground.

There was another pause as he stared blankly at the ground, then he slowly reached down and retrieved his chunk of ore, turned it until he found the sharpest edge, then pressed the sharp edge up against his other wrist.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

"You want to summon a demon?"

"Technically, but nothing at all like what you're imagining. He is, however, a specialist who has a great deal of experience dealing with people like Sasuke."

"If you say so..."

"I do. **_ Emo! The left hand of death summons you from the darkness!_**"

He threw his beads, but this time the flame that formed was black, and once it had taken sufficient human form, Sarutobi formed his seal, "**_ANIMO MANES!"_**

Emo phased into existence, but ignored them, continuing the geological assault on his wrist.

Naruto looked at Sarutobi cautiously, "This is the guy?"

"Yes."

"What is he doing?"

"He's trying to cut himself with a rock. He does that sometimes."

"Why?"

"Because he's not allowed to have sharp objects anymore."

"I'm failing to see how this... person... is going to be able to help us with Sasuke."

Hearing him, Emo suddenly glared, "Thats right, I'm not good for anything! No one ever wants me around!"

Sarutobi smiled, "Thats a very nice sweater you have there, Emo."

"You don't really think that though. No one ever understands my self expression. NO ONE LOVES ME!"

Naruto blinked, "Maybe I spoke too soon."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

"What do you mean 'They're staying with me'?"

Bardiel rolled his eyes, "Exactly what I said. It's an honor, Zabuza. It means that the upper echelon thinks you're a good role model."

Zabuza honestly couldn't come up with a coherent response to that other than: "They think _I'm _a good role model?"

"They do, and you can't argue. Kimimaro and Tayuya have already been assigned as your apprentices. We all look forward to their success."

The door was slammed in his face, and the devil of the hidden mist stomped off, his new minions rushing to try and keep up.

"I can't (bleep)ing believe this. Those (bleep)ing (bleep)ers dump their extra (bleep)ing recruits on me and expect me to just go the (bleep) along with their (bleep)ing plans!"

Tayuya looked around nervously, "Where are those bleeps coming from?"

"This is heaven, so the word (bleep) is automatically censored. You can say damn, shit and crap, but not (bleep). Try it if you don't believe me."

"(bleep)... What the (bleep)?... Mother (bleep)er! Try it, Kimimaro!"

"Actually, I'd rather not, as I find the two of you to be profane enough as it is."

Suddenly finding himself the focus of a great deal of ire, Kimimaro sighed, "Fine... (Bleep)."

He looked startled for a moment, "(Bleep)... (Bleep)... (Bleep)... (Bleep)."

There was momentary stillness.

"(Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)! (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)! "

Tayuya and Zabuza looked at him strangely, "Ok, you can stop now."

"Seriously, kid, you're freaking me out."

The white haired man looked lost in his own world for a few seconds, but then snapped out of it and shook his head, "It's... amazing. The soft, yet still firm and insistent tone of the 'bleep'..."

"It's a divine sensor bleep."

"No! It is so much more than a sensor bleep... it is my soul shining through!"

"What is _with_ this guy?"

Tayuya shrugged, "Kimimaro doesn't really do anything halfway."

"But isn't this a little excessive?"

"Well..."

/-/-/-/Initiate Flashback Sequence/-/-/-/

Orochimaru looks down at the uber-chibi Kimimaro, "Hey kid, you look like hell, want to come hang with me for a bit?"

"Wow! Someone's offering me help. I'm gonna swear to be his lifelong slave!"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Chibi Kimimaro leaves a corner store, then notices hes missing a bit of change.

"What! That lady stole thirteen cents from me! I'm gonna kill her and her entire family!"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Kimimaro orders a hamburger at McDonalds, but realizes they only gave him one piece of pickle,

"How dare they! I'm gonna burn this restaurant to the ground along with everyone in it!"

/-/-/-/End Flashback Sequence/-/-/-/

"Not for him, no."

Kimimaro had resumed his experimentation, "(Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)ity, (Bleep)! ba(Bleep), ba(Bleep), ba(Bleep), ba(Bleep)! "

Zabuza twitched, "If you don't stop that right now, I'm going to eviscerate you."

Now Kimimaro didn't know what 'eviscerate' meant, but it sounded rather painful, and so he became quiet, huffing haughtily.

"Now as I was saying, since you two are apparently going to be bothering me until I can find someone else to dump you on, there are a few basic rules that..."

"(Bleep!)"

His head snapped around, but Zabuza was greeted by the sight of them both pointing at the other while trying to look innocent. In most cases this would have weeded out the perpetrator, but since Kimimaro and Tayuya were both used to always being the person who had done whatever it was they were being suspected of, neither of them were even the slightest bit convincing when it came to looking innocent.

Not about to start playing that game, Zabuza started to talk while walking backwards.

(Zabuza is about to brief Tayuya and Kimimaro on the rules of the afterlife, and since they are almost exactly the same as the rules set down by Sarutobi for Naruto, I give you instead something completely random.)

Early in the morning on the day after he lost his arms, Orchimaru gets out of bed and walks over to his closet in his "Metal Gear Solid 2" boxers, looking for something to wear.

_It's okay if don't have arms, _he thinks to himself, _I can dress myself using my freakish tongue._

/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Later, at breakfast, Orochimaru sits down and looks over his food.

_It's okay if don't have arms, _he thinks to himself, _I can eat using my freakish tongue._

/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Later, in the bathroom, Orochimaru finishes doing his business on the toilet, then looks at the roll of toilet paper.

_It's okay if don't have arms, _he thinks to himself, _I can..._

He suddenly looks down at the toilet, then back at the toilet paper, then up at the door, "KABUTO! I need you for something!"

(And now, back to our usually scheduled weirdness)

"Everyone understand? Good, because I'm not explaining it again and if you break the rules you'll join your friends in hell."

Not really having any choice in the matter, the two nin mumbled acknowledgment.

Zabuza turned a corner, still walking backwards, "Okay, we're almost to the orientation building, where you're going to be subjected to a few hours of crap lectures from a bunch of annoying do-gooders."

"Aren't you supposed to be... I don't know... mentoring us?"

"That will come later, since as I said before, I have smiting to do."

Not allowing any more discussion, Zabuza pulled open the doors to the orientation building and shoved the two newbie angels inside.

"Have fun, and try not to piss anyone powerful off."

The door slammed behind them, and Kimimaro suddenly saw an obnoxiously smiling woman stand up from her desk, "Hello there! Welcome to new angel orientation, my name is Sandra, but you can call me Boopsie!"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-

Naruto shuffled nervously along next to the newcomer while Sarutobi ventured on ahead, following Sasuke's trail, "So... Emu... how do you like being a demon?"

"It's Em-o. You know how to pronounce 'O'? Like in 'broke' or 'choke' or 'mope' or..."

"Yeah, I get the picture."

"You get the picture? YOU GET THE PICTURE? DON'T PRETEND TO KNOW HOW I FEEL WHEN I KNOW YOU'RE REALLY LAUGHING AT ME ON THE INSIDE!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"DON'T LIE TO ME! NO ONE LIKES ME ENOUGH TO APPOLOGIZE!"

"Um... If you need me for anything, I'll be up with Sarutobi."

"Yeah, that's right, I knew you really didn't want to talk to me."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

As Sasuke ran full tilt towards Konoha, he found himself continuing to have doubts, and a furious battle was being waged inside his skull.

"_Come on, give this insane chase up!"_

"You can't order me around. You're not actually Kakashi, you're just an imaginary voice that sounds like him."

"**Surprisingly enough, the captain has a point. We are merely delusions created by his subconscious. This, however, does not lend any credibility to any of his other opinions, which I still object to quite strongly."**

"Hey you two, stop talking about me like I'm not here! I'm still the #1 Sasuke."

"_Hmm... True. How about we compromise then?"_

"**Indeed, compromise is always advisable. What did you have in mind?"**

"_How about this, in exchange for us keeping quiet about this spontaneous obsession, Sasuke #1 buys us some decent literature to enjoy."_

"**You mean porn, don't you?"**

"_No..."_

"**You're lying."**

"_Maybe..."_

"I am not buying any porn."

"_Not even a little bit?"_

"No."

"_What about something with artistic merit? We could buy some well drawn hentai manga or something like that."_

"That's still porn."

"_No it's not, it's art."_

"**Technically, it is both."**

/-/-/-/7 Minutes Later/-/-/-/

Sasuke was sitting on the grass massaging his temples, "Okay, so we can agree that while under some circumstances hentai manga could be considered artistic in a way that supersedes it's inherent nature as porn, my intention when speaking was to declare that I have no intention or desire to buy anything that even could in the vaguest sense be classified as porn."

"**That would seem to cover everything."**

"_Yeah, I guess."_

"Good, then lets go."

Being unable to hear the voices in Sasuke's head, the three supernaturals had been watching with a kind of detached unease.

Emo for one was so disturbed that he even forgot to be whiny, "Man... There is something really wrong with that guy."

Sarutobi nodded, "Yes there is, but do you think you can slow him down?"

Exited at the prospect of interacting with another intelligent being, Emo looked almost somewhat happy (but not really), "Oh yeah, we'll have a lot of fun together!"

"Just don't go overboard, I don't want him to end up throwing himself off a cliff or anything."

The demon suddenly dissolved into a ball of light, zipped over to Sasuke, and somehow got absorbed into him.

Kakashi-Sasuke and Spock-Sasuke suddenly felt a new presence, "Hello everybody. I know you don't care, but my name is Emo"

Sasuke #1 faltered mid leap and fell out of the trees, "Now theres another one of you?"

"Wait... The host can hear me? I'm supposed to be in his sub-conscious."

"_Yeah, well, Sasuke's been getting very in touch with his sub-conscious recently."_

"So who the hell are you and why are you in my head?"

"I said before, I'm Emo, and I'm really supposed to send you subconscious messages that will lead you into a downward spiral of depression, but that really doesn't work if you know I'm here."

"So then..."

"Well, we could just hang out or something."

"I meant 'so then when are you going to get the hell out of my head.' "

"So you wanna do this the hard way? Fine."

Sasuke was suddenly overcome by a cloud of sadness and he fell on his butt then grabbed his knees, rocking back and forth, "All of a sudden it makes sense. The whole world becomes clear once I realize that nothing I do will ever matter and that nobody will ever love me."

"Well," Sarutobi said, "At least he's not moving anymore. Emo should be able to restrain him until we can undo the fate alteration."

"So then," Naruto asked cautiously, "What are we going to do now?"

"Now..." the older man intoned, "We have a far greater challenge to overcome"

/-/-/-/Hidden Leaf: Hokage Tower/-/-/-/

"Hello Shizune?"

"Good afternoon Tsunade-sama... Did something good happen?"

"Not really, it just seems like a happy day."

As Tsunade skipped into her office, Shizune was left with the unshakable feeling that something wasn't quite right. Following her teacher into the Hokage's inner sanctum, she cautiously approached the singing Tsunade, who suddenly spun round, "You know, I like dark haired men."

"Thats... Nice, I guess."

"In fact, I like men best with an air of mystery, and maybe just a little rebelliousness too."

"Is there some reason for bringing this up now?"

"Not really... I'm just feeling romantic today, I guess. And maybe a little wistful."

"It's good that you're in such a good mood, but we have a lot of things to take care of right now, so it might be better to focus on what needs to get done."

"Why do you always have to be so... so.. responsible?"

Shizune let out a little noise of exasperation, "One of us needs to be."

"I think _you_ need to get laid."

"Tsunade-sama!"

"What? It's true. You need to go out and meet some men your own age rather than hanging around in this tower all the time."

"Th... Th... Th... Thats..."

"It doesn't even have to be serious if you don't want, I mean, you're plenty attractive enough to have guys lining up just for a chance to talk to you. All you need to do is find a bar, shake your...mmph!"

Shizune clamped her hand on the Hokage's mouth and smiled over the older woman's shoulder at the all-too amused looking man in the doorway, "Anything we can help you with, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Right now, I have to say I'm pretty interested in what it is Tsunade wants you to be 'shaking' in bars."

The Hokage pried off her helper's hand, "Jiraiya, your an expert on this type of thing. Don't you agree Shizune is hot?"

"If you'd excuse us for a moment, Hokage-sama." Shizune ran out of the room, dragging a stunned Jiraiya along.

"What on earth is wrong with her?"

"I'm not sure! She came in really bouncy, and then started talking about how she liked her men dark and mysterious and then she... she..."

"Ok, you need to calm down and think about this rationally."

"We're you listening to her! How am I supposed to be rational!"

Indiscernible as always, Sarutobi shook his head to clear it of the motion sickness that came with teleportation and gawked at the scene, "I can't help but wonder if maybe I had a bit too much confidence in the villagers."

"I don't know." Naruto answered diplomatically as he watched Shizune have a nervous breakdown, "Nothing seems to be on fire yet."

Smoke suddenly started to pour out of the Hokage's office, causing those still breathing to choke and cough.

"Wow..." The blond grinned, "What were the odds of that happening?"

"Please Naruto, for the sake of my sanity; remember that we are part of fate. Rashly spoken words can have an effect on the real world."

"Point taken, but I'm really more concerned about Tsunade and her situation. If she keeps acting this weird, people are going to start noticing."

Tsunade skipped out of the flaming office and giggled, "Sorry about that, peoples!"

"As compared to now, you mean?" Sarutobi said skeptically.

"Well, if we can fix things or at least obscure them quickly, everyone might pass it off as stress or something."

"That's how this usually works, but I'm shocked by how fast Tsunade is succumbing. I gave her will more credit than that."

"Well," Naruto said, "Maybe she doesn't want to resist. Maybe she's been focusing entirely on fighting and gambling for too long and is yearning for love."

"Oh. I actually hadn't thought of that. Well this just fucks everything up royally."

"...Did you just say what I think you said?"

"What? I'm allowed to say fuck. I don't have to be a role model any more."

"Yeah," Naruto looked down at the general mayhem and chaos below them as Jiraiya and Shizune gathered a fire crew while Tsunade pranced dreamily around mumbling something about her prince, "You passed that job on to her."

"Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck."

"Feel better?"

"Yes, thank you."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Zabuza strolled through the streets feeling relatively contented. He had smitten his quota of 'evil doers', and could now go home and enjoy dinner. His peace was only disturbed by the fact that he was sure he had forgotten something, and as he pondered his eyes strayed up to the skyline and the looming orientation building.

"Oh (bleep)."

His good mood dying faster than puppy thrown in lava, Zabuza stormed over to the main doors and threw them open, "You brats in here?"

He reeled back as there were two unexpected impacts on his lower body, and he tottered as he realized that he couldn't move his legs due to there being people clinging to them.

Tayuya was shaking like a leaf, "I swear to god, I will be your slave for life if you just never send me back in to that building again."

"Who'd want you as a slave? You're weak, unattractive, and bitchyyyaaand, hello there, Boopsie."

The ever cheery angel smiled brightly, "It's nice to see students show so much affection for their teacher."

"Isn't it?" Zabuza said in a gratuitously fake cheerful voice, "How did they do today?"

"Very well, though they might benefit from a couple more days training..."

"I think I'll do the rest of it myself, actually."

"Why, that sounds wonderful! It's good to see an angel showing so much interest in the education of novices."

"Now if you'd excuse us, we need to be getting home."

Boopsie closed the door behind them, and Zabuza growled, "Either you let go of my legs RIGHT NOW or my sword is going to get very 'affectionate' with your faces'."

After dusting themselves off, the two seemed to regain a bit of their composure and Tayuya, who pretty much always spoke for both of them since Kimimaro hated talking, tried to backpedal a little in hopes of repairing her shattered dignity, "And you know, I was of course just kidding about the slave thing and..."

"Shut up."

"..."

"Remember that the quieter you are, the less likely I am to figure that being knocked down a few ranks for 'accidentally' throwing my apprentices into the fiery pit of hell wouldn't be as bad as having to put up with you."

The silence now having become slightly tense, Kimimaro and Tayuya followed silently as Zabuza led the way back to his house.

Haku heard the front door slam open, and set down the stew he had just taken out of the oven, "Welcome home, Zabuza-sama, how was your da..."

Emerging from the kitchen, Haku trailed off at the sight of their guests, "You really should have told me you were going to invite people over."

Tayuya swept her gaze over Haku, who was wearing an apron, then looked back at Zabuza, "Seriously, how did a jackass like you get a girl like her to move in with you?"

And things pretty much deteriorated from there.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Author's Notes:

No, I'm not dead. On the other hand, I was in something of a slump for a while, and I just seem to be recovering now.

I'm not exactly sure how I got into my slump, but I think it had something to do with the fact that I'm just not liking the new Naruto content. Some people like filler episodes, others view them as a necessary evil, and then there are those people who would watch if even they just took old dragon ball Z episodes and photoshoped Naruto's face onto Goku's head, but not me.

So what did I do all this time? Mostly original work, actually. A couple short stories, and a handful of essays. I also started university, which predictably takes up quite a bit of time, but about four days ago I impulsively loaded up this chapter (which at the time was only a quarter finished) and found that for some reason, I had rediscovered my motivation.

Go figure.


	5. Walker, Heaven Ranger

Tayuya was wringing her hands nervously as Haku dragged her through the house, "I'm really not sure about this."

"Oh, don't be silly. It's just a change of clothes."

"Yes, but they're... weird."

Haku found even his legendary patience being tested, "Oh... come on!"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

While the others were out of the room, Zabuza and Kimimaro were doing some male bonding through the longstanding tradition of eating chicken wings. It would have been better had there been beer on hand, but as alcohol was almost unheard of in heaven, they had to settle for fruit punch (Which although not as manly, was very tasty).

While the pale skinned angel had at first been removing the meat from the wings with a fork and knife, he was now snatching them up, tearing the meat off in one bite, and tossing the bones into the garbage can across the room.

Zabuza watched silently for a moment, then grabbed two wings in one hand, scraped them both clean across his teeth and threw them across the room so that they bounced off the wall and into the awaiting trash can.

This escalated for a few minutes, until Haku and Tayuya arrived to find Zabuza and Kimimaro both holding five chicken wings in each hand. Within seconds, all twenty wings were free of meat, and were thrown across the room, bouncing of the now sauce-stained section of wall and tumbling into the nearly full garbage can.

Tayuya blinked, "What are you two doing?"

Kimimaro held out a hand as he continued to meet Zabuza's gaze, the former eventually relaxing and leaning back in his chair, "Ha, it looks like I underestimated you, girly man. I could never get Haku to eat chicken wings with me, but you held your own pretty well."

A proverbial question mark appeared above Baku's head, "We eat chicken wings sometimes."

Zabuza grabbed his mug of fruit punch, ignoring the fact that his hands were covered in barbecue sauce, and drank it in a single gulp, "Yes, but you've always missed the point."

"Looking at you two, it would seem the point is to make as large a mess as possible."

Kimimaro tilted his head, "Excuse me, but why is Tayuya hiding behind you?"

Haku was forcefully shoved out of the way as Tayuya glowered, "I'm NOT hiding!"

Kimimaro's mouth opened and closed a few times silently, causing Tayuya to remember precisely why she _had _been hiding.

Zabuza snickered, "What do you know, the brat really _is _female."

"Dammit, I knew I shouldn't have let myself get talked into this."

When Kimimaro's motor cortex finally managed to re-establish connection with his mouth, he managed to get his gaping under control and form words, "You... girl... uh?"

Haku smiled, "See, he thinks you look cute too."

"You're taking a few liberties in translation there, don't you think?"

"I'll have you know that despite my less than macho appearance, I'm still perfectly fluent in Man-ese."

Tayuya was wearing one of Haku's angelic white kimonos, which fit her quite well except for being a few sizes too small in the chest, and that was putting it tactfully. Watching with barely concealed amusement as Tayuya tried to hide again and Kimimaro stared blank facedly, Zabuza was somewhat reassured that despite their appearances, the two shinobi still had a certain innocence to them.

Which to him, of course, meant something to make fun of.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Tsunade slept peacefully among the slightly charred wreckage of her office, having been put under by a sleeping genjutsu courtesy of Shizune.

Not wanting to disturb the general populace as of yet, Jiraiya and Shizune were hoping that the Hokage was just suffering from temporary delirium, perhaps from being overworked or from going a whole three days without gambling.

Hoping the problem would go away if the hokage was left to sleep, they had then left to try and keep the village up and running while preventing anyone from discovering the mayhem and remains of a fire in the Hokage's office.

This left Naruto and Sarutobi with nothing to do but watch over the sleeping woman and await the passage of time until they could re-align her fate.

Now on their 2341st round of Rock-Paper-Scizzors, the two spirits were getting restless, but just when Sarutobi was about to suggest that they check out the rest of the town to pass some time, there was a disturbance outside the window and a darkly clothed form slid silently into the room.

"Shit!" Naruto and Sarutobi swore at the same time as Sasuke knelt down next to the Hokage, his expression turning gentle as he gazed upon her face.

"Whoa..." Naruto said slowly, "Sasuke is smiling... creepy."

"Please, Naruto, lets try to stay on-topic here. Why isn't emo doing his job?"

Sasuke stroked Tsunade's face lovingly, "Ah... my blond goddess, I know I am unworthy, and could wish for nothing more than to die next to your peacefully sleeping body."

Naruto blanched, "Well, I guess that answers our first question, now how do we get Emo out of Sasuke before he decides to either slit his wrist or... even worse."

"What," Sarutobi asked dully, "Could be worse than Sasuke slitting his wrist?"

The Uchiha withdrew his hand from Tsunade's face, sighed, and then flung his head back, "CRAWLING IN MY SKIIIIIIIIIN, THESE WOUNDS, THEY WILL NOT HEEEEEAAAAAALL."

Tsunade awoke with a start and Naruto plugged his ears, "dammit, either get Emo out of Sasuke or I'm going to give him a razor myself."

Struggling against the horrible noise, Sarutobi formed a single seal, "Vanish!"

Sasuke went rigid, then a few little puffs of smoke came out of his ears, and he stopped singing, "Wait... why would I ever want to kill myself, today is the beginning of my... no... our new life."

As the still groggy Tsunade lost herself in the depths of his dark eyes, Naruto and Sarutobi were trying their very best not to panic.

"Shit, shit, shit... this is very bad, we're way past the point of no return, we have to make this work somehow."

"What do you mean, 'make it work'," Naruto asked nervously.

"Well, Sasuke is already here, and from the looks of things we have almost no time until the making out starts. Since I would rather stab out my eyes with a hot poker than see that, we need to settle for a temporary solution."

"Which would be?"

Sarutobi snapped his fingers, and one of the ceiling beams broke loose and fell cleanly onto Sasuke's head, knocking him strait out.

Tsunade looked around, then giggled, "This is a silly dream."

With that, she collapsed back to sleep, and Naruto looked bemusedly at the scene, "Well, I suppose that works. But now Sasuke is unconscious inside the Hokage office, and Jiraiya or Shizune might be back at any time, so we're kind of stuck again."

"Alright Naruto, what do we do when we're facing a situation that we can't fix within the rules set out for shinigami?"

"Umm..."

"I'll make this easier, how did you always solve these problems when you were alive?"

"I broke the rules."

"Exactly."

"Didn't you tell me that the rules were never ever to be broken under any circumstances?"

"No, actually I didn't. The rules don't allow for direct interference, and for a very good reason, but right now the alternative is doing nothing, and we absolutely cannot do nothing."

"So... Thats all just complicated way of saying that the rules were made to be broken?"

"Well, the one about direct interference anyway. The other ones are pretty rock solid."

Naruto looked at the mess that was Sasuke, the broken wooden beam still laying on him, "What constitutes direct interference?"

Sarutobi suddenly flickered, turning blurry, and calmly kicked the wood off Sasuke's prone form and hefted the unconscious boy over his shoulder, "This."

The younger spirit's mouth formed a perfect 'o', "You need to teach me that..."

"Later. Right now we're getting out of here."

"I assume we can't teleport with Sasuke, he has an actual body."

"We can't teleport, but regular people still can't see me, or most can't at least. I'll just run with him, and if I move fast enough I don't think anyone will notice that he's not moving under his own power."

"What?"

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"I wish I were. Now lets go."

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Tayuya and Kimimaro followed nervously as Zabuza led them and Haku through the streets of heaven, on their way to the daily angel welcoming.

"So you're saying," Tayuya whispered, "that we're going to meet god?"

Haku smiled warmly, "In a manner of speaking."

While everyone else was chatting, Zabuza was grumbling, "I'd forgotten how annoying it was to have to walk everywhere. First thing tomorrow, Haku, we're teaching these runts how to fly."

"Oh, we live close to the arena, and it's a lovely walk. Try to be more cheerful."

"Wait," Kimimaro suddenly broke in with, "The arena? Why are we going to an arena?"

"For a long time, the angels were always arguing with the boss, so he had the arena built and declared that anyone who disagreed with him was welcome to take him on mano-a-mano. Incidentally, it's also used for the daily greeting of new angels."

Getting more annoyed by the second at the chatter, Zabuza grabbed Kimimaro and threw the boy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, "Haku, grab Tayuya. Unless you want me to go crazier than I already am, we're flying the rest of the way."

And so, with absolutely no regard for appearances, Zabuza and Haku hauled their unwilling passengers into the sky, their newfound speed bringing them within sight range of the arena in just under a minute. The massive building was open topped, allowing angels to just fly in the roof and land in their seats.

Since there were no fights today, the only people there were other fledgling angels, about twenty in all, being chaperoned by two archangels to ensure everyone behaved themselves. Zabuza had been intentionally late in leaving since he hated spending more time than was absolutely necessary with archangels, and since they had walked the first part of the way they were even later.

Kimimaro fell to the ground unceremoniously while Haku let Tayuya down a bit more gently. She reached to help him up then stopped as Haku and Zabuza went rigid.

"Well," there was a pause, "what," there was a pause, "is," there was a pause, "going," there was a pause, "on," there was a pause, "here?"

Still on the ground, Kimimaro gaped, "But you're..."

(We interrupt this moment of revelation for a random scene change to something far less interesting)

Two painters stood in a room, admiring their work.

"You know," the first one said, "I think this is the best white wall we've ever painted."

"I agree," said the second one, "Together we have painted uncountable walls white, and yet this one is by far the whitest."

"And yet," the first said with a frown, "something seems to be missing, as if our masterpiece is not yet complete..."

"Wait, I've got it! What it needs is another coat of white paint!"

"Brilliant. Another coat of white paint to make this near perfect white wall achieve it's potential greatness."

"I am truly quaking with anticipation, lets get to work."

And so, the two painters added another coat of white paint.

And then watched as it dried.

(And now, back to our tense moment of revelation)

Chuck Norris nodded, crossing his arms, "I," there was a pause, "am," there was a pause, "the," there was a pause, "boss" there was a pause, "in" there was a pause, "these" there was a pause, "parts" there was a pause, "and" there was a pause, "I'd" there was a pause, "like" there was a pause, "to" there was a pause, "know" there was a pause, "why" there was a pause, "you" there was a pause, "are" there was a pause, "so" there was a pause, "late."

As he had taken a little over a minute to get out that one sentence, and pretty much everyone took a few seconds to reconstruct it into a coherent phrase. Zabuza, being the senior angel, was the one who responded, "I apologize, I've never been a mentor before and I did not think far enough in advance to account for my charges being unable to fly."

"Well" there was a pause, "that" there was a pause, "seems" there was a pause, "fair"

"You're Chuck Norris!"

All eyes suddenly riveted themselves to Tayuya, who had spoken, and the referred to man raised an eyebrow at being interrupted, "Yes" there was a pause, "I" there was a pause, "am."

"How can you be Chuck Norris and god at the same time?"

There was yet another pause, but this one was vastly more awkward, particularly once Tayuya realized she was being a smart ass to god. She had never been particularly religious, but now after finding out that god was a master of the roundhouse kick, she was concerned about her loose tongue.

But despite her blunder, Norris did not seem angry, "I" there was a pause, "am" there was a pause, "not" there was a pause, "god" there was a pause, "and" there was a pause, "while" there was a pause, "I" there was a pause, "do" there was a pause, "run" there was a pause, "heaven" there was a pause, "I" there was a pause, "am" there was a pause, "known" there was a pause, "here" there was a pause, "only" there was a pause, "as" there was a pause, "Chuck" there was a pause, "Norris" there was a pause, "so" there was a pause, "I" there was a pause, "simply" there was a pause, "kept" there was a pause, "the" there was a pause, "name" there was a pause, "when" there was a pause, "I" there was a pause, "spent" there was a pause, "a" there was a pause, "few" there was a pause, "years" there was a pause, "on" there was a pause, "earth."

This phrase having taken up the better part of five minutes, Zabuza whispered to Haku out of the side of his mouth, "Hey, translation?"

Haku took a few seconds to process it all, then said in a rather bad imitation of Norris' voice: "I am not god, and while I do run heaven I am known here only as Chuck Norris, so I simply kept the name when I spent a few years on earth."

Despite the bad voice impression, there were nods all around as few of the assembled angels had been able to understand Chuck Norris when he spoke. Norris himself silently acknowledged Haku's translation, having learned a few centuries ago that if he wanted his orders obeyed, he had to write them out.

Norris had a long introduction to do, and while the older angels were used to it, the new recruits were soon bouncing on the balls of their feet, lost in thought as their esteemed leader talked at the blistering pace of ten words a minute.

As for Zabuza, he had long since mastered the art of blocking all outside stimuli and loosing himself in thought, which he found served him very well in heaven, where he rarely cared what anyone had to say.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

They ran across the roofs of Konoha without so much as a whisper, but the younger spirit noticed that Sarutobi's effort of projecting himself into the physical plane was quickly draining his energy, and a few hundred feet from the village wall Sasuke fell and hit the shingles as the arms holding him suddenly became insubstantial.

"That's all I got." Sarutobi said in barely a whisper, "But it shouldn't take me more than a couple minutes to recover and we're far enough away from the wall that the odds of a patrol seeing us is near zero."

Naruto let out the breath he had been holding despite the fact that he had no actual need to breathe, but he suddenly spotted movement. Orochimaru's arms were both sitting on the next building, and they both had their hands full. The left hand held a large gong, and the right was giving a mallet a few test swings. Though obviously neither arm had a mouth, he had the sudden feeling that they were grinning twistedly.

"You've got to be joking."

The old man looked up to inquire about his apprentice's outburst, but right then a piercing clang spread across the Konoha skyline.

/-/-/-/-/Completely Unrelated Omake/-/-/-/-/

Young Sasuke walked up to the door to his clan's estate, and felt intuitively that something was off. Where there was usually a bustle of activity there was only silence, and something about the air seemed just...wrong.

He walked nervously through the streets and alleys, getting more nervous as he passed more and more silence. It was if everyone had somehow vanished.

He shook his head, ridding himself of such silly worries. He was a big boy now, like his brother, and he knew that Itachi wouldn't get worried over something dumb like this. He nodded to himself assuringly, thoughts of his brother's eternal confidence calming him.

He was approaching his house now, and he slowly felt a pounding in his bones. At first he thought it was just his heart, but it seemed to reverberate throughout his entire body, from his feet all the way to his physics-defying hair, and the feeling got stronger the closer he got to his house.

By the time he opened the sliding door, he was actually shaking as these unknown vibrations ran through him. He carefully checked all the rooms, but found no one and nothing to indicate where anyone was. The one thing he did notice was that the strange shaking got stronger and weaker as he moved to different areas of the house.

Following instinct, he searched out where the feeling was closest, and found himself in the family dojo. Running his hands along the floor, he followed the vibrations to a corner and found a ridge in the floor. Digging his fingers in and lifting revealed a secret door, and he could feel the vibrations in the very air, feeling like someone was blowing on his face in time with the unknown rhythm.

He took the steps two at a time, using determination to overcome his fear, and after descending a hundred or so feet, he faced a heavy wooden door and his teeth were chattering, but he could now hear variations, more subtle pulses overlayed over the deep pulse that had drawn him hear. He wondered if it was some sort of code or signal, but he was never going to find out if he didn't act, so with the last of his nerve, he kicked the door in.

Suddenly, he knew where the clan had gone, and his eyes locked with his older brother's, "Itachi... how could you! How!"

The older Uchiha said nothing, and Sasuke turned and ran up the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him, his still immature heart torn asunder by his brother's betrayal. Tears clouded his eyes, but he didn't stop running, not until he reached Hokage tower.

He pounded on the door with his small fists until a groggy Sarutobi opened the door groggily, "Sasuke-chan? What's wrong?"

"Itachi... the clan... He... he..."

"What, Sasuke? What did Itachi do!"

"He... was doing a disco."

This took a moment to sink in, "What?"

"I found them... the whole clan... they were in my house...dancing...and Itachi was in the middle... doing... I still can't believe it..."

Back at Sasuke's house, in the basement; Itachi was absently straightening his glaringly white suit as the rest of the clan stood around him dejectedly. His father shook his head, "We should have told him Itachi. We knew this day was going to come."

"But he won't understand. Sasuke has always hated disco, ever since we tried playing Stayin' Alive above his crib."

Their mother's mouth curved upwards, "I know, Itachi. We were all avoiding telling him because of his reaction, but maybe now that's it's out in the open, we can teach him to love disco."

Itachi looked down, then suddenly straightened and smirked, "That's right!"

He snapped his fingers, and the mirror ball spread it's rainbow across the room, "Hit the music, uncle, and crank the bass. The whole town is going to party with us tonight. We may need to drag Sasuke into this at first, but whether or not he likes it, my foolish little brother has boogie in his blood."


End file.
